Life poems
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Against the Evidence
© David Ignatow
As I reach to close each book
lying open on my desk, it leaps up
Laodamia
© André Breton
"With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;—
Restore him to my sight—great Jove, restore!"
from The Task, Book IV: The Winter Evening
© William Cowper
(excerpt)
Hark! ’tis the twanging horn! o’er yonder bridge,
Walter Llywarch
© Ronald Stuart Thomas
I am, as you know, Walter Llywarch,
Born in Wales of approved parents,
Well goitred, round in the bum,
Sure prey of the slow virus
Bred in quarries of grey rain.
After the Pleasure Party: Lines Traced Under an Image of Amor Threatening
© Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Fear me, virgin whosoever
Taking pride from love exempt,
Fear me, slighted. Never, never
Brave me, nor my fury tempt:
Downy wings, but wroth they beat
Tempest even in reason's seat.
from The Rape of Lucrece
© William Shakespeare
Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
The Tongues We Speak
© Patricia Goedicke
I have arrived here after taking many steps
Over the kitchen floors of friends and through their lives.
I Am the Woman
© Gerard Malanga
I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker,
Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek,
Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek,
Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker,
Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek,
Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak.
Soon, O Ianthe! Life is O'er
© Heather Fuller
Soon, O Ianthe! life is oer,
And sooner beautys heavenly smile:
Grant only (and I ask no more),
Let love remain that little while.
I would I might Forget that I am I
© George Santayana
Sonnet VII
I would I might forget that I am I,
Wall, Cave, and Pillar Statements, after Asôka
© Alan Dugan
In order to perfect all readers
the statements should be carved
An Anatomy of the World
© John Donne
(excerpt)
AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD
Wherein,
by occasion of the untimely death of Mistress
The Death of Lincoln
© William Cullen Bryant
Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
from The Seasons: Spring
© James Thomson
As rising from the vegetable World
My Theme ascends, with equal Wing ascend,
Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni
© Dante Alighieri
To the dim light and the large circle of shade
I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills,
There where we see no color in the grass.
Natheless my longing loses not its green,
It has so taken root in the hard stone
Which talks and hears as though it were a lady.
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 118
© Alfred Tennyson
Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature's earth and lime;
Lines to Mr. Hodgson Written on Board the Lisbon Packet
© Lord Byron
Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
